CHILE EARTHQUAKE MAY HAVE SHORTENED DAYS ON EARTHSpace.com | March 2, 2010

The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis," NASA officials said in a Monday update. The computer model used by Gross and his colleagues to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake effect also found that it should have moved Earth's figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds).

The Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph). The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced. It is offset from the Earth's north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).

Strong earthquakes have altered Earth's days and its axis in the past. The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, should have shortened Earth's days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches (7 cm, or 2.32 milliarcseconds). Click HERE to continue reading at Science.com...

Hard to believe that a comic book sales record could be set at the peak of an unprecedented "recession," but that's exactly what happend this week when a near pristine copy of ACTION COMICS #1 featuring the debut of SUPERMAN traded hands anonymously for the princely sum of $1 million USD. Previous books have fetched in the $500K range but the high 8.0 grade of this museum quality example "warranted" its excessive pricetag. If we had to guess, we'd place newly broke actor Nic Cage in the room for this transaction as he's been selling off his incredible comic book collection for a minute now and even has a son named (wait for it) Kal-El, after Superman's true birthname. We really can't help but wonder, though, what someone in Haiti would think of this news...

*Click HERE to browse an original issue of Action Comics #1 cover-to-cover...

Menace 2 Society: NYC Police led this 12-year-old girl out of her classroom in handcuffs for doodling on her desktop...

Increasingly, harsh zero tolerance policies towards graffiti and other offenses in US schools are seeing grade school-aged children being treated with harsh adult-style police discipline inside the actual classroom. This problem was exemplified when, incredibly, a 12-year-old NYC girl with a spotless record was physically arrested in her classroom for doodling on her desktop this month:

(CNN) — There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)" scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.

Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct.

Alexa's hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school in front of teachers and -- the worst audience of all for a preadolescent girl -- her classmates.

"They put the handcuffs on me, and I couldn't believe it," Alexa recalled. "I didn't want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I'm a bad person." Click HERE to continue reading at CNN...

If Borat went to Napoleon Dynamite's high school and did Vanilla Ice covers in the talent show backed by Spank Rock's production crew, you're starting to approach understanding the M.O. of the amazingly weird South African "Zef" rap trio DIE ANTWOORD ("The Answer"). Comprised of Capetown rappers Ninja, Yo-Landi Vi$$er, and DJ Hi-Tek (along with a revolving cast of skid row homies like their Gollum-esque sidekick), the trio's inimitable brand of dirty, cracker-ass, Afrikaner Hip-Hop literally must be seen to be believed:

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — A man pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Haiti's capital Monday may have been trapped since the January 12 quake that leveled much of the city, doctors reported.

The 28-year-old man, identified as Evan Muncie, was found in the wreckage of a market where he sold rice, his family told staff at a University of Miami field hospital. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries, the doctors said.

"He was emaciated. He hadn't had anything in quite some time. He had open wounds that were festering on both of his feet," said Dr. Mike Connelly, of the university's Project Medishare. The people who brought him to the hospital said they found the man while digging out the marketplace, Connelly said. Click HERE to continue reading...

Yes, we at Supertouch are known to grind on and on about how dead-in-the-ground the vinyl toy world is these days, but every once in a while a toy comes along that restores our faith in the medium. Today, that toy is the TERRY RICHARDSON figure by upstart toymakers UNCLE YORK for Parisian culture boutique COLETTE (we woulda bought a Terry x Michael Lau toy ages ago but they never got made). Available in red or blue trademark flannel, the must-have piece don't come cheap at $200 USD, but it sure beats the other junk on the shelves...